Given the importance of prevailing wage laws to many construction workers, we thought it might be useful to see where the known members of the Republican Farmer Labor Caucus stand on this issue. After all, the group touts itself as a "pro-hard-hat-union" affiliate of the Republican Party of Minnesota.

Workday Minnesota explains why prevailing law laws are a boon to construction workers:

Prevailing wage (link is external) functions as a local minimum wage for different types of skilled construction work. It is typically applied to publicly-funded projects like roads, bridges, and schools, and is based on what skilled craft workers in the community are most often paid for comparable work. ...

The new research on prevailing wage by MEPI and University of Colorado State Pueblo economist Dr. Kevin Duncan examined more than 600 school construction bids The researchers found those that paid higher wages did not add to the overall cost of the projects because skilled workers were more efficient and made fewer mistakes.

“This study brings important, new evidence that Minnesota’s prevailing wage law maintains wages and benefits for Minnesota's construction workers, reducing their need for public safety programs and helping to keep these working families in the middle class, and it does this without a detectable impact on public construction costs,” said University of Minnesota labor economist Dr. Aaron Sojourner, who performed a peer review of the research. Sojourner is a former economic adviser to President Trump and President Obama.

“Prevailing wage is a win-win-win for Minnesota taxpayers, the state’s economy, and the construction industry,” said study co-author and Colorado State University Pueblo economist Kevin Duncan. “While the data consistently shows that overall project costs and bid competition are not affected by the law, its impacts on wages, local hiring, welfare reliance, workforce productivity, and the overall stability of the labor market are especially significant.”

“In terms of project costs and local hiring, the new data out of Minnesota mirrors what’s been seen in other states,” said study co-author and Midwest Economic Policy Institute Policy Director Frank Manzo IV. “A repeal of Minnesota’s prevailing wage law would not save money, but it would export more tax dollars to businesses from out of town.”

Ballard compares the Michigan prevailing wage repeal to the 2015 passing of Michigan’s Right to Work law,

"(Right to Work) was sold to the public as giving Michigan's economy a shot in the arm," Ballard said. "But less than 10 percent of Michigan's private sector workers are part of a union, and we've seen nothing that shows it's done anything for our economy. Repealing prevailing wage is much the same. Construction is a small sector in our overall economy, and I don't foresee any long-term upside."

What Michigan shows is that attacks against organized labor are expanding into prevailing wage repeals and, therefore, into the building trades. What the research shows is that prevailing wages play an important role in expanding and protecting good jobs. ..

The current members of the RFL are Miller, and fellow Republican Representatives Jeff Backer of Browns Valley, Jeremy Munson of Lake Crystal, Jason Rarick of Pine City and Deb Kiel of Crookston.

Munson swept into office during a special election in early 2018, so his online record is more slender than the rest of the caucus funders. However, Miller has in the past bee quite vocal against maintaining wages for construction workers. We reported in 2014's MN17A: Fact-checking Tim Miller's claim about prevailing wages on road construction projects that Miller attacked prevailing wages by making outlandish claims about how rural construction workers make--while hoping to drive down their wages on public projects.

That year, he also told the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Fund PAC [pdf with answers here] that he wanted Minnesota to become a "right to work" state and to make the prevailing wage calculation to the average wage (in short, reducing his hard-hat buddies wages and reducing other opportunities and benefits for them):

Which statement best reflects your views on requiring all workers in a union shop to pay union dues as a condition of employment:

I would remove this requirement and support legislation to make Minnesota a “right-to- work” state.

Would you support changing Minnesota’s prevailing wage calculation to the average wage?

RFL Labor-Chair, Representative Jason Rarick has experience working with Minnesota’s hard-hat labor unions and is a 20+ year member of the IBEW.

“The Republican party supports Minnesota jobs, including safely replacing the pipeline, responsible mining and a major investment in our roads and bridges – all which are vehemently being opposed by the DFL. This is why we have started the RFL – to help our State’s laborers understand who is in St Paul fighting for them.”

*An earlier version of this post had an editing error for Nash's views. It was corrected on September 3, 2018.

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